# When Hollywood gets the message all wrong – worst lessons from TV/film. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 12, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198 "2009-05-12T18:32:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/141 "2009-05-13T22:20:38Z")
> [@Umbriel2](#): > > Ethical considerations aside, I find this hard to dispute. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AdmiralCrunch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@AdmiralCrunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdmiralCrunch)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/142 "2009-05-13T23:05:40Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > **All underdog sports films** - Through sheer moxy and borderline cheating, a team of lazy out of shape slackers and losers can beat the well trained, disciplined champions. The [Onion](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28032) to the rescue! [Quote=Krokodil] **Pulp Fiction** : Sordid violence is unbelievably glamorous. [/quote] Tarantino’s point, cribbing from the French New Wave, was that you can make violence as slick and cool as you want, but you still end up dead. It’s kinda what the whole movie is about. Jules chooses to give up the life, and Vincent doesn’t. Vincent gets shot unceremoniously on the toilet. He even throws in a poorly-acted cameo as Jimmy to show that you can’t escape your past. It’s regular movies that glorify violence, gangsters, war, and crime while the hero escapes unscathed because the bad guys are pure puppy-kicking evil. Making the bad guys funny and cool while the good guy is a liar who just killed a guy in the ring damns everyone involved. ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/143 "2009-05-13T23:18:28Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train;11133587 Sleepless In Seattle When a woman stalks a heart-broken widower and misleads her generous and caring fiance because he has allergies, it’s cute. [/QUOTE] Word. > [@](#): > > Pretty In Pink You should cut up your friend’s vintage dress and make a sack out of it in order to attract the rich kid with no backbone and a bunch of snotty friends that don’t like you. Plus, the message from the Annie Potts character is that you are quirky, funny & interesting. But if you attract a rich, sweet guy you have to make yourself over into something conservative & dull to keep him. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/144 "2009-05-13T23:37:11Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Isn’t there a Taoist saying about being like a feather on the wind? “I’m a leaf on the wind. Watch me soar!” ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/145 "2009-05-13T23:54:32Z")
> [@maplekiwi](#): > > Word. > > Plus, the message from the Annie Potts character is that you are quirky, funny & interesting. But if you attract a rich, sweet guy you have to make yourself over into something conservative & dull to keep him. I have the same issue with **The Breakfast Club**. ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/146 "2009-05-14T00:21:18Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > I have the same issue with **The Breakfast Club**. Agreed - in fact the Breakfast Club is even worse! ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/147 "2009-05-14T00:34:42Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > I have the same issue with **The Breakfast Club**. The Breakfast Club is even worse; Ally Sheedy’s character is made over and dulled down in order to attract the attention of the dull, violent, unintelligent, following sheep jock. If she was going after the _nerd_ it might’ve been marginally more acceptable, but as it was, it was just her becoming another sheep. Boo. ---
**Author:** ![caligulashorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@caligulashorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulashorse)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/148 "2009-05-14T00:59:32Z")
Shrek? Shouldn’t make fun of/ridicule people who are “different” from you. The old “can’t judge a book by its cover” angle… except for short people. They don’t count. Their covers are small, afterall. Why would they? ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/149 "2009-05-14T01:40:15Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > But it’s a little perplexing that you’ve chosen to identify Carol as speaking _the_ message of the episode. Why not Walter, who fully supports Maude’s right to do as she chooses, even though her decision will profoundly affect his life as well? Walter was supportive, and mostly admirable in his attitude toward Maude and her choices about her pregnancy (except for the whole 'lying about the vasectomy thing), but Carol’s views were just as represented, and I found them to be pushy and unsupportive. It felt to me that it was more important for her to make a statement about feminism than to support her mother’s wants and decisions. I feel I can address the viewpoint of one character, as long as the show stands behind that view. On another note, I always saw the whole “Shrek is anti-short people” thing to be unfounded. If Farquad hadn’t been such an evil jackass, maybe the heroes (and movie) wouldn’t have mocked him so much. Message: if you’re nice to people, they wont hate you and take petty shots at you. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/150 "2009-05-14T02:40:14Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > About the only thing that someone did for him was Lt. Dan investing in Apple, and that was a risky move right there. The Apple IPO was RISKY? That’s not how I remember it. And Carol from _Maude_ was a shrill moron and, like everybody else on a Norman Lear show, a cartoon. Great boobs, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/151 "2009-05-14T02:51:17Z")
> [@Tenebras](#): > > Exactly. Everybody knows you keep your passed out girlfriend to yourself. What we want is for you to pass your POG\* to us. > > - I’ll bet you never realized why collecting and trading POGs was such a big craze, did you? The little disks were just tokens to keep score. This is why I never had pogs? I am short. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/152 "2009-05-14T02:56:40Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > …the romance between Will and Jocelyn gets me every time, probably because I’ve got a lot more in common with Kate. > … > I just wish he had better taste in women! Fair enough. Kate is smart, skilled, funny, (and hot)… she definitely deserves to find happiness. And while I can’t see much of the attraction of Jocelyn (aside from the obvious – hey, I am a guy) 🙂 she is Will’s chivalric ideal of a high-born lady, _la belle dame sans merci_ – though she turns out to have genuine feelings for him. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/153 "2009-05-14T03:08:36Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Except that a lot of the good things that happened to him were beyond the control of the people in his life. > > The storm that killed every shrimpin’ boat but his? His amazing running ability? His talent for ping pong? No one gave him those things. About the only thing that someone did for him was Lt. Dan investing in Apple, and that was a risky move right there. > > I really see it as a Law of Attraction thing. > > Isn’t there a Taoist saying about being like a feather on the wind? I enjoyed Forrest Gump as a dramatic comedy but will dispute there was any real “message” other than the fact that it was funny and poignant that Forrest was a lucky, lucky 'tard who kept falling face first into remarkable situations and into good fortune. It’s more analogous to Peter Sellers “Being There” than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/154 "2009-05-14T03:43:57Z")
Re. Forrest Gump: the story of the Wise Fool goes way, way back, to medieval times or earlier, in traditions ranging from European to Chinese. It’s hardly original. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/155 "2009-05-14T03:55:57Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > If Farquad hadn’t been such an evil jackass, maybe the heroes (and movie) wouldn’t have mocked him so much. More to the point, if he hadn’t been a jackass WHO SPECIFICALLY REFUSED TO ACKNOWLEDGE HE WAS SHORT, there would have been no jokes. The jokes were primarily things like Farquad having special armour to make him look tall, and people trying, desperately, not to say ‘short’ around him. The jokes were about Farquad’s ego, not his height. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/156 "2009-05-14T03:59:25Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Actually, the role CHOOSES her. She picks up a tool of each trade and nothing happens, she picks up the hammer and it glows (yeah, I suppose one could argue that something inside her made it glow, but remember, this is a show for 3-5 year olds). That’s where my problem comes from. She is literally being labeled. > > BTW, IRL I really don’t obsess over Tinkerbell this much. Point taken. 😉 I think that whether or not we choose our professions or they choose us is a bit too existential for a Kindergartner, or maybe not. Maybe that’s the perfect time to ponder such questions. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/157 "2009-05-14T04:03:34Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I enjoyed Forrest Gump as a dramatic comedy but will dispute there was any real “message” other than the fact that it was funny and poignant that Forrest was a lucky, lucky 'tard who kept falling face first into remarkable situations and into good fortune. It’s more analogous to Peter Sellers “Being There” than anything else. Except that Forrest wasn’t really all that lucky. He got to do a lot of things that other people would care about much more than he did, like meet the President and such. All the really cared about was the well-being of his friends. Bubba died, Jenny got AIDS, and Lt. Dan got his legs blown off and went crazy. Forrest was hardly ‘lucky’ in the sense that he always got what he wanted, he got a bunch of stuff he never wanted and didn’t really care about but recognized on some level that it was useful. He was just stupid enough to recognize the simplicity of things. I think that was the message. If you think that he was a lucky lucky tard, then you are projecting your own wishes and desires upon him. If anything his luck was that he was not attached to the things that the rest of us want and as such is able to live the Tao in a way people with a more complex thought process cannot. He was smart enough to be grateful for the blessings, but too stupid to curse his suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/158 "2009-05-14T06:09:35Z")
Re: **Fight Club** I’ve always seen it as a parable on the rise of fascism and a warning on how it could happen again, in America. ---
**Author:** ![jimigorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@jimigorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimigorilla)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/159 "2009-05-14T14:00:34Z")
It seems to me many people are confusing what happens in a movie (or any story) with the morals of said movie or story. Without wanting to give Hollywood too much credit for high standing morals, if a story has a negative content, usually that doesn’t mean that the storyteller condones such behaviour. It’s more often intended (however blandly and tastelessly) as a warning of sorts. A ‘realistic’ movie may portray people and events in a rather grim light, not because that is how the director wants reality to be, but because that is how he perceives reality to be. That being said, I have always been puzzled by these slasher movies where the immediate punishment for teenage sex seems to be brutal dismemberment at the hands of some violently inclined mental patient. A curious message, to say the least. One wonders in what deep and dark recess of the collective psyche such images are born. It appears to be mostly a Hollywood phenomenon though. Other movie cultures seem a lot less less obsessed with the dire consequences of juvenile promiscuity. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198/160 "2009-05-14T14:02:22Z")
**jimgorilla** , you seem to have completely forgotten that this country was founded by Puritans. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-hollywood-gets-the-message-all-wrong-worst-lessons-from-tv-film/496198.md?page=9)